Projects - Expanding Educational Resources

Name of Project

Expanding Educational Resources

Location

Kyrgyz Republic

Contact

H. Yoder

Description of Project

Expanding Educational Resources, a Peace Corps Partnership project at a high school in Kyrgyzstan, is being organized by a PCV from Oregon, H. Yoder. The project will create an English language resource center in a high school where students currently have a limited range of English materials and often use outdated materials from the Soviet era.

The new center will supply students and faculty members with up to date books and digital materials and encourage contributions from both groups. Faculty and students from several classes will use the center. The organizers expect that the center will enable students to learn English to a higher level and thus gain better opportunities for university education and in the job market.

Additional Information

Please note the blanks (___) are where the name of the village or other identifying information was edited out before this information was provided to us.

1. Executive Summary:

As of right now, _____ Gymnasium School in ____
Village, Kyrgyzstan, does not have any outside resources for
students learning English. Students who have books are
learning from outdated materials from the Soviet era. The
purpose of the proposed English resource center is to give
students access to current books and materials. It will also
help those students who may find the traditional classroom
a difficult one to learn in. The center will encourage
students to explore learning opportunities on their own
outside of the materials they are given in class. A computer
and the digital encyclopedias will also provide students and
faculty members with current information about a variety of
topics that they will find useful both if they are learning or
teaching. This project is sustainable; students and faculty
will be welcome to add their own contributions to the
resource center now and in the future. When new books and
materials come in, there will be a place to keep them where
they will be readily available to those who might find them
useful rather than limiting their access to one or two
classrooms. With access to these resources, students will
gain a better English language education, a better chance of
getting into top universities, and a competitive edge in the
job market.

2. Background Information:

___ Village is a rayon center in the ___ Oblast with
approximately 15,000 current residents. ___ depends largely
on tourism to stimulate its economy. There are sixteen
families involved in CBT, or Community Based Tourism, an
organization that hosts tourists who want to experience a
more traditional visit to Kyrgyzstan. A large draw for many
tourists is the ___ Lake, which is located 100 kilometers
from ___.

Since ___ is a rayon center, many products are easily
available. The center houses two libraries: one for children
and one for pupils and adults. There are several good-sized
shops in the center, including ones that sell school supplies,
personal hygiene products, and household wares. The ___
Bazaar sells a small variety of clothing, shoes, and boots.
Once a week on Saturdays the ___ Bazaar takes place, which
is where most people buy their animals. The ___ Bazaar also
offers a much larger area to buy clothing and housewares.
The food market is small but offers fresh, seasonal fruits and
vegetables year-round. ___ has had volunteers before who
have successfully implemented sustainable projects in ___
and at ___, a women's cooperative that makes shyrdaks
(traditional rugs).

There are four schools located in the rayon center,
and ___Gymnasium School is one of them. Of the four
schools, ___is closest to the center, currently has 1,378
students enrolled, and is the only gymnasium school in ___
rayon. The school has a reputation for producing some of
the best students in the rayon. Since 1997, seven students
have been selected to study in America through the FLEX
program. Many students take either first or second place in
the Academic Olympiad each year in different subjects.

3. Community Need:

The condition of the School has been slowly
deteriorating. The school was built in 1985 and has not been
updated since then. Most of the resources currently
available to teachers are from the Soviet era. While the
school caters as best it can to the students studying there,
there is currently no English center available for students to
study at. The proposed resource center will provide teachers
and students with updated materials to learn English rather
than using outdated books. We will also request an
encyclopedia set on CD in both English and Russian. With a
computer and these encyclopedia sets, we will enable
students to learn to obtain information on their own outside
the classroom. Having access to these outside resources will
not only improve their English but will also greatly expand
their knowledge about the world and many topics they are
not familiar with because they do not have the materials
available to them.

Every student is required to learn a foreign language,
and since most students choose to study English an English
center would greatly benefit the majority of pupils at this
school and would serve as a resource for students to
enhance their reading and listening skills. Many students
are very self-motivated, attending English clubs in their free
time and spending significant time outside the classroom
working on their speaking skills. These students would find
the center an ideal place for practicing their language skills
outside the classroom. Given that most classes are still
taught in the traditional style of following a textbook, this
center will also provide a place for students to explore other
methods of learning.

4. Community Initiation and
Direction:

The administration and faculty of the school are
extremely supportive of this project. The English teachers at
this school initiated this project, backed by the
administration. Previously, English books were housed in a
small room that only one English teacher had a key, and
therefore access, to. The administration has offered to
donate a much larger room to this project, and also to pay
the salary of an extra employee so the center will be open
and operable during the school day and students will be
free to use the center as they wish.

The community is also taking direct responsibility in
implementing the project. They have already found outside
sources to complete jobs such as building the cabinets and
shelves needed, and also delivering the newly purchased
computer to the school. They are also donating time and
labor as well as extra monetary funds to repair the room
where the center will be. My counterpart and I will be
responsible for the transferring of skills not only to students
on how to effectively utilize the center, but also to faculty
members, on how to maintain the center's success and
sustainability. The community will then be responsible for
making sure the center remains open for students and that
its resources continue to expand after the I have left.

5. Community Contribution:

The total cost of this project is slightly over 2,000 $USD.
The School is showing it's support for this project by
contributing 27% of the total costs. They have agreed to
donate the monetary funds needed to purchase smaller
items needed to repair the venue: metal bars for the
windows, a plug-in for the computer, nails, paint, and desks
and chairs. They will also be funding the cost of the
transportation to bring outside materials to the school, like
the shelves, cabinets, and computer. Also, several teachers
have volunteered their labor in the actual repair work of the
room. They will install the bars, paint the classroom, lay
new flooring and linoleum, and install electricity and the
computer. Their largest contribution that is also most geared
toward sustainability is the donation of the large classroom
and their willingness to pay a faculty member an extra
salary indefinitely in order to keep the center open and
available to the students during the week.

6. Project Implementation:

Beginning in May, the counterpart and volunteer will
ask the cabinet builder to begin building shelves, cabinets,
the computer desk, and round table. During this month
___will also purchase the materials needed to repair the
room designated for the center, and with the help of the the
computer teacher, ___, will find and purchase a computer.
The months during summer vacation have been designated
as the time when the repairs to the center will be made. The
Counterpart and her husband, as well as various other
available teachers employed at the school will make the
repairs including installing electricity. Following the repairs,
the finished cabinets and shelves will be installed by the
same teachers who will make the repairs, and the room will
be furnished with the table, computer desk, computer, and
donated desks and chairs from the school.

After the room has been repaired and furnished, the
counterpart and the PCV will move the books and teaching
materials the school already has into the center. We will sort
and categorize the books and materials by difficulty level
and subject and then designate cabinet and shelf space for
the various topics and categories. The books will be filed
accordingly before the beginning of the new school year in
September.

The school has already designated one staff member
who will make sure the center stays open during the week
for students to use. The counterpart and the PCV will train
her on the categorization of the center and teach her how to
file new books and resources so that any new materials that
come in will be filed correctly and students will be able to
find the resources they are looking for quickly and
efficiently. This training will take place in August, before the
beginning of the school year.

Once the center is furnished, categorized, and the staff
member has been trained, the students will be welcome to
use the center as they like, following a training by the
counterpart and the PCV on how to find and use the
resources that will be available. Given that there are 1,378
students currently studying at the School, these trainings
will take place over several months, from September
through November.

7. Project Sustainability:

This project is designed to benefit the school for years.
The room the school has designated for the center is
spacious, and the shelves and cabinets are large enough that
they will be able to hold the books and materials that have
been donated already with plenty of space for any new
materials to come in. The faculty and administration at the
school have pledged their full support for this project by
locating a larger venue than was initially planned and by
agreeing to hire an employee that will be responsible for the
categorization of materials and maintenance of the center in
the future. This person will serve as a librarian and will hold
regular work hours so that the center will be available to
students when they want to access it during the school day.
The school has agreed to take on this extra employee and
pay her salary indefinitely. The administration has also
taken into consideration the need for more computers in the
center in the future. The school will donate extra desks that
will accommodate students who want to study
independently while in the center, but in the future can
potentially hold more computers.

The school has a history of self-motivated students
who are eager to utilize any and all resources the school has
to offer. With the support that the faculty and
administration have shown, I believe that this project will
greatly benefit students for years to come. It will also serve
as a resource for English teachers since we will house
outside teaching materials there. It also has enough space to
hold trainings and seminars for teachers in the rayon. In
short, although the students at the school will be affected on
a daily, regular basis by this project, it will also benefit the
community as a whole both in the near future and for many
years to come.